The blood of Egyptian horses was renewed with the Islamic conquest of Egypt in the year 21 AH corresponding to 642 AD, as Egypt was a Roman province of the Byzantine state.
Amr ibn al-Aas entered Egypt from the Sinai, and headed to Belbeis in the Sharkia Governorate. With the fall of Alexandria, the Islamic era began, and the Coptic majority of Egyptians converted to Islam after the conquest.
It was mentioned in the book “The Egyptian Countryside in the Islamic Era” (p. 29) quoting from Al-Maqrizi (Al-Khitat, vol. 1 p. 20) that Amr ibn al-Aas was keen to follow Muslim horses and take care of them in Egypt and inspect them after they returned from the rent “places of pastures”.
Ibn al-Aas recommended Muslims to take care of their horses and work to strengthen and tame them. Abdel Aziz Ibn Marwan was also interested in horse breeding in Egypt, and they had places dedicated to grazing in Helwan.
Researcher Khaled Muhammad Awad bin Laden asserts, in an analytical study submitted to the College of Fine Arts to obtain a master’s degree in 2018, that after the Islamic conquest of Egypt, Amr Ibn Al-Aas approved the ranches system. In Amr ibn al-Aas’s sermon to his soldiers, he urged them to go to the farms for a period of 6 months and then return to Fustat. He said: Enjoy in your countryside what you like, so eat of its goodness, milk and sheep, tend your horses, fatten them, preserve them, and honor them; For it has protected you from your enemy, and with it your spoils and carrying your burdens… So if the stick has dried up and the pillar has warmed, it will come to your tent with the blessing of God.
And each tribe was assigned a specific area to which they went with their horses. “The ranches system begins in the spring, and they go to Upper Egypt, where the banks of the Nile and green fields.”
War horses must be continually trained; Therefore, Amr ibn al-Aas was keen not to lose her ability to fight, and not to be raised in stables; So he approved the ranches system. When the horses return to Fustat, they join the stables of the houses.
